Company Scrambles as Weinstein Takes Leave and a Third of the Board Resigns

The Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in Zurich last year. In response to accusations of sexual harassment, he began an indefinite leave of absence from the Weinstein Company on Friday.Credit
Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

The Weinstein Company struggled to perform damage control on Friday amid allegations of rampant sexual harassment by its co-chairman Harvey Weinstein and turmoil among its ranks. One-third of the company’s all-male board resigned, while board members who remained hired an outside law firm to investigate the allegations and announced that Mr. Weinstein would take an indefinite leave of absence immediately.

Mr. Weinstein had said on Thursday that he would take a leave of absence, but it was unclear when he would leave, how long he would be gone, or what it meant for his relationship with the company he co-founded.

“As Harvey has said, it is important for him to get professional help for the problems he has acknowledged,” said a statement signed by four board members, Bob Weinstein, Tarak Ben Ammar, Lance Maerov and Richard Koenigsberg. “Next steps will depend on Harvey’s therapeutic progress, the outcome of the Board’s independent investigation, and Harvey’s own personal decisions.”

The moves came as employees and business partners of the company voiced concern about the allegations, revealed in a New York Times investigation on Thursday, and board members and executives jostled for control.

Harvey Weinstein did not sign the statement put out by the four board members, and did not respond to requests for comment. With him gone, the statement said, his brother, Bob Weinstein, the company’s co-chairman, and David Glasser, the president and chief operating officer, are in charge of the company.

Photo

From left, Marc Lasry, Tim Sarnoff and Dirk Ziff, all of whom resigned from the board of the Weinstein Company on Friday.Credit
From left, Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times; Jordan Strauss/Invision for Producers Guild of America, via AP; Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images

Meanwhile, three members of the board — Dirk Ziff, a billionaire investor; Marc Lasry, owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and chief executive of Avenue Capital Group, an investment firm; and Tim Sarnoff, president of production services and deputy chief executive of Technicolor — have resigned, according to a board member and a company executive. The status of the ninth board member, Paul Tudor Jones, is unclear. He did not sign the statement or respond to a request for comment.

The Times investigation found complaints of sexual harassment by Mr. Weinstein stretching back decades and at least eight settlements paid to women. Angered by the revelations, employees of the company have demanded swift action by its leaders.

Earlier Friday, a lawyer advising Mr. Weinstein said in a television appearance that he had acted inappropriately and agreed with an interviewer who had characterized Mr. Weinstein’s reported actions as illegal.

The acknowledgment by the lawyer, Lisa Bloom, came during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “Good Morning America” in which he asked her about the report.

“This is a real pattern over 30 years; this is like textbook sexual harassment,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said, after describing the allegations.

The Weinstein Investigation

“It’s gross, yeah,” Ms. Bloom replied.

“It’s illegal,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said.

“Yes. You know, I agree,” Ms. Bloom said. “See, you have to understand that, yes, I’m here as his adviser. I’m not defending him in any sexual harassment cases — there aren’t any sexual harassment cases. I’m working with a guy who has behaved badly over the years, who is genuinely remorseful, who says, you know, ‘I have caused a lot of pain.’”

Reached by The Times for additional comment on Friday, Ms. Bloom said: “The New York Times allegations if true would constitute sexual harassment. However, Mr. Weinstein denies many of them and was not given a fair opportunity to present evidence and witnesses on his side.”

Mr. Weinstein has apologized for his behavior, acknowledging in a statement on Thursday that it had “caused a lot of pain” and vowing to “do better.” He later said in an interview with The Wrap that he intended to sue The Times for failing to give him enough time to respond to the allegations in the report.

Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, said that Mr. Weinstein had been given two days to respond.

“We included all relevant comments from Mr. Weinstein in our story and published his entire response,” she said. “Mr. Weinstein and his lawyer have confirmed the essential points of the story. They have not pointed to any errors or challenged any facts in our story.”

Ms. Rhoades Ha also called for Mr. Weinstein to release his employees from nondisclosure agreements he reportedly had them sign.

“As a supporter of women, he must support their right to speak openly about these issues of gender and power,” she said.

Weinstein Company board members spent nearly three hours Thursday night locked on the phone in heated discussion about the best way to respond. Mr. Weinstein co-founded the company with his brother, Bob Weinstein, and they own 42 percent of it.

Everyone agreed that an outside investigation was necessary, but there had been debate over the length and terms of Mr. Weinstein’s leave, and whether additional steps were necessary, according to those involved.

In an email to employees on Friday, Mr. Glasser, the company’s president, said that the company was “taking the allegations seriously” and that the investigation would determine the “best decision for how to address the situation.”

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He said the company would start working with an “independent, third party firm” to which employees could report episodes of harassment they had experienced or witnessed. He said that the company “values women” and was “committed to a work environment in which all individuals are treated with respect and dignity.”

“I truly want to do what is right for this company, our many wonderful partners and, most importantly, you — our employees, so we are not taking this lightly,” Mr. Glasser wrote.

In its statement on Friday night, the board said, “We believe it is important to learn the full truth regarding the article’s very serious accusations, in the interests of the Company, its shareholders and its employees.”

The departure of Mr. Weinstein is a serious blow for his company, which was already struggling at the box office. The independent studio is currently headed into a make-or-break period — Oscar season — without its master campaigner. In recent weeks, Mr. Weinstein had been personally working to re-edit “The Current War,” a drama set for release in late November and intended as an anchor of the company’s awards slate.

As it has become harder to make money with prestige-minded dramas, many of which now find their primary audiences through video on demand, the Weinstein Company has tried to pivot toward television production. But Mr. Weinstein’s leave — not to mention an internal investigation and a board in disarray — may also curb those efforts, which include two major series in the works for Amazon Studios and three planned for Viacom’s new Paramount channel.

In response to the news of the sexual harassment allegations, at least four Democratic senators said on Thursday that they would give away donations they had received from Mr. Weinstein, a supporter of several progressive causes. They were joined on Friday by Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Kamala Harris of California.

Some celebrities also reacted to the news, expressing frustration with the behavior described in the report while voicing support for the women who chose to speak out publicly.

But several actors, producers and directors contacted on Friday declined to comment about Mr. Weinstein and the relatively minimal public conversation in Hollywood about his behavior. One who did speak, Lynda Obst, a producer of films including “Interstellar,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “The Fisher King,” said she expected more reactions to eventually surface.

“I think everyone is just taking it in, it’s so upsetting — talking internally,” Ms. Obst said. “I do expect a robust response from the community rejecting this kind of behavior toward women. Obviously it is intolerable.”

Still, pointed criticism continued to trickle in on Friday night as rumors swirled about Mr. Weinstein’s future. The chef and television personality Anthony Bourdain took to Twitter to assail “all the people who knew and said nothing” about Mr. Weinstein’s alleged harassment, as well as “those who are STILL staying silent.”

The actress Kirstie Alley retweeted a message posted by the actor Peter Fonda in which Mr. Fonda said he would have insulted Mr. Weinstein to his face had he known about the alleged abuse.

Mr. Weinstein had supported endowments honoring women at both Rutgers University and the University of Southern California.

Rutgers said Friday that it planned to keep his financial contribution to the Gloria Steinem Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies, adding in a statement that the university “can think of no better use of this donation than to continue this important work.”

U.S.C. did not say whether the news would affect an endowment for female filmmakers that Mr. Weinstein had pledged to organize.

In the interview on Friday, Ms. Bloom said that she took issue with characterizations of Mr. Weinstein’s actions as harassment.

“You’re using the term sexual harassment, which is a legal term,” she told Mr. Stephanopoulos. “So, I’m using the term workplace misconduct. I don’t know if there’s a real significant difference to most people, but sexual harassment is severe and pervasive.”

“What Harvey Weinstein has done is wrong; he has caused pain,” Ms. Bloom said, adding: “Here was an opportunity of a guy saying, ‘Lisa, what should I do? I have behaved badly.’ I’m like, good, I’ll tell you what to do. Be honest, be real.”

Earlier this year, the rapper Jay-Z and the Weinstein Company said they planned to work together on a series of television and film projects about the life of Trayvon Martin, based on a pair of books about the teenager, one of which was written by Ms. Bloom.

Gloria Allred, Ms. Bloom’s mother and a lawyer famous for defending women’s rights, said on Thursday in a statement to The Wrap that she disagreed with her daughter’s decision to work for Mr. Weinstein.

“Had I been asked by Mr. Weinstein to represent him, I would have declined, because I do not represent individuals accused of sex harassment,” she said. “I only represent those who allege that they are victims of sexual harassment.”